Christmas At The Esquire Man’s House

Charles put his fine-lipped crystal whiskey glass down on his mirrored side table and sighed. The Vermont-milled whiskey stones sat slowly defrosting in the empty glass, staring accusingly up at him.

How many personal leather-bound shaving kits did a man with only one face need, he wondered. Was thirty enough? Forty? Hogshead and boarshead and marehead bristles. There wasn’t an animal in the world he couldn’t have killed in order to use its bristles for a shaving brush.

As long as it had bristles, he corrected himself, and then sighed again, thinking of all the bristle-less animals he’d never be able to use to sweep shave cream across his face.

He had a bacon-flavored peacoat and cashmere-infused scotch. His closet was in his refrigerator and his refrigerator was in the poolhouse. His pool had been converted into a grill; his grill was just a place where he kept his Patek Phillipe timepieces. Every book he owned had its own Libero Ferrero leather carrying case (“for the reader who is always on the go and can never stop to rest, not even for a second, because someone might get ahead of you and then who would you be, my God, then where would you be”). He had a voice-activated machine in his kitchen that was just for making single-malt malteds (the machine spoke with Christina Hendrick’s voice. Not a recording. Her actual voice). All of his gloves were antique driving gloves and he was very good at sex. He knew the one right way to make a BLT and had a signed coupon from Clint Eastwood good for one (1) firm, manly handshake with eye contact on demand.